Isn't it difficult to predict how much spares are going to cost?
I had little choice but to go to my BMW dealership for four items in the two years that I have owned my 1992 BMW 525 estate and the cost of every one of these items has been a surprise. (The following costs each include VAT.)
# The four brake bleed nipples which I bought simply as an insurance for when I changed the system fluid cost £13 the set (I expected to pay a fiver).
# The rear screenwasher bottle lid cost 52 pence (I thought I might have to buy the whole bottle).
# Two new gas struts for the opening glass panel in the tailgate cost just over £17 each (I was expecting nearer £45 each).
# A new speedometer head cost £115. (Being essentially a stepper motor, a dial, a pointer and a clock spring, I hoped for no more than £35).
I must admit to hesitating over the speedometer. The pointer on mine sometimes sticks at various speeds, especially on a long journey, which means I have had to guess my speed at some most inappropriate moments. I repaired the speedo twice, it being a five minute job to remove and refit but a very delicate and 'no-rush' item to work on. The bore of the spindle bush had worn slightly, allowing the spindle to kick-over a few thou and drag. I applied a spot of light oil to help centre the spindle in the bush and this worked, but only for a few weeks until the oil drained out. I decided that a speeding fine and points on my licence were not worth the risk so yesterday I ordered a new speedometer. All contributions gratefully received!
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Back cover of the side mirrors (in body colour) £90 - plain black one £21
Little torch in the glove box £18
Roof rack about £1.5K !!!!
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David,
Overall I would be happy with all these prices regardless of the car make. I buy parts for a fair selection of vehicles and you can never guess what the prices are going to be.
One of the hardest to explain to a customer recently was for a failed tailgate lock on a Citroen ZX. A tiny spring had broken in the lock and wasn't available on its own. Hence the complete assembly was required at around £30 to replace a spring that would fit in a thimble.
I sometimes ask the storemen on the phone "give me a rough price, will it be £10 or £100" because you really can't guess closer than that.
The above is my contribution, you didn't want more money to pour into the Fen economy did you?
David
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price for ZX front towing eye plastic cover -£17!!! it only about 200cm2 of injection moulded plastic.
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My mate has a pug 406.
Someone half-inched one of the plastic covers on the front bumper where the headlight washers would go if he had them. Peugeot want to charge him £25 for a new bit of plastic (a rectangle about 1" by 2") that is only available primed, and not painted.
Vauxhall want to charge me £58 for a new idle air control valve and £68 for an electric aerial!
ripppp off. I'm sure they just think of figures in their heads and expect us to pay...
Mark.
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The plastic trim strip above the numberplate (holding the two lights)on the Focus tailgate costs £62.
The chromed version is, apparently, nearer £100. Both are daylight robbery.
If your numberplate lights fog up it is a design fault of the seal, allowing water in to the fittings, which Ford are aware of.
I asked for, and got, my money back from Ford for the cost of the parts which does not involve the replacement of the trim unless you break the central spiggot off which is very easy to do due to a very weak design.
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On my Pug 309, IIRC, a window winder motor was £85 and the operating arm (a couple of nits of bar with a rivet) £35.
Someone else was getting a heater fan at around £200.
I have tried to guess what it would cost to build a complete car from spares and my estimate was at least 6 times the cost of new car, probably more.
And that is without labour!
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When I got my Accord I asked how much it would be to have a rear spoiler fitted (the low-rise one with an LED brake light - nothing fancy).
I was told £420 plus £30 fitting.
For a piece of plastic.
With a light in it.
I said I'd think about it.
Alex.
P.S. It kind of makes you wonder what the mark-up on a new car is. How much, for example, does it actually cost Honda to make to SE Exec? It costs us £17500 to buy, how much does it cost them to build it?
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not as bad as fitting fog lights to a 306 - £680
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No wonder drivers want to get good use out of them, regardless of the weather...
Now if I see a driver *without* them on I'll think 'What a t***'.
Piers
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Talking of Pug 306's:
Plug from harness to door (c/w 20 wires)
£40+ vat.
Door key
£30+ vat and that's just for the metal add another £50 odd for the infared transmiter
and whatever you do don't lose the card to your new keyless Laguna, I've heard that these are close on £1000 each!!!!!!!!!!
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Alex
The profit margins are certainly piled on the upmarket models. How much more real cost goes into the L or GL or whatever, compared to the base model? Substantially less than the premium charged. It appears the same is true for factory fitted options, although these are perhaps subject to more testing and type approval than aftermarket items.
However, to be fair, you can't just look at production cost - there are huge development costs for vehicles, which have to be recovered over the production run, and these can be substantial.
Even so, this doesn't appear to explain the apparently random spares pricing discussed in a previous thread.
As for advertising, I saw some figures a while back and when TV campaigns are used the cost per car is frightening, especially on the lower volume vehicles.
Some informed breakdown of car costs would be interesting to see!
Regards
John
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This is more than evident with Ford and Mazda. For the same parts for a probe and mx6 Ford is more expensive.
Incredible
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IRRC the cost of building a new ten grand car is about 2-3k. The rest is marketing, development etc. Which would make buying all the parts separately about 300, 000 quid.
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My Toyota Previa: Cover for front seat squab, i.e the bit your bum rests on not including the back of the seat (chewed by Great Dane puppy): £430 supply only. -Not unusual in my experience of Toyota prices
Fortunately discovered we have a local classic coachtrimmer who did a perfect invisible repair for £55 including dismantling and re-fitting the same morning I contacted him.
Dog still in disgrace.
PG
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Mk2 VW Golf, rubber boot between steering rack and bulkhead - £58 plus VAT from VW dealer. It's directly above the exhaust, so it perishes and splits, then your steering rack fills with water and seizes....
Distributor for an Audi Coupe 20V, complete with drive gear, rotor arm, distributor cap, sender unit etc - £98 plus VAT from Audi dealer. Must cost VAG about 1,000 times as much per unit as the rubber boot.
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I nearly did not read this thread - because the tilte was so unhelpful.
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Mark, I wasn't trying to draw attention to BMW prices in particular, so your revised title isn't quite there. It was the 'one surprise after another' that goes with ALL spare parts costs that I was referring to, hence the original title.
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It used to be said that BMW's pricing policy was to put a decimal point somewhere in the part reference number and that was the price. Nuts and bolts, dot towards the left, engines and things, point towards the right!
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Interestingly, certain bits and pieces come at a reasonable price - ie those high volume things which break easily and get replaced a lot.
One bloke once told me that many things which he HAS to stock only shift one or two units a year - hence the big mark-up to justify his paying for it and then keeping it gathering dust for months.
Makes sense, in a sort of insane-economist sense of thinking... (Not unlike most governments' economic policies!)
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John,
You are right, manufacturers not only need to recover their developement costs, they also need to grow margins.
What is curious, is what appears superficially as irrational pricing. I would expect parts to have a 30% or so markup, but these spare prices seem very inconsistant relative to what one would reasonably expect.
Regards,
Julian L
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Friend of mine works for VAG - IIRC he said they expect to sell spares to double the value of the original car.
Having seen VW/Audi spares prices, I am not surprised.
I WAS a bit surprised at being asked, c5 years ago, £25 + VAT for ONE Peug 405 wheel trim. I went to Halfords & bought 4 (not Peugeot, of course) for £12!!
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Saab 9000 front fog lamp (4 square inches of glass + basic casing)=£110. I'll get by without it, thanks.
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With military aircraft the budget is that in a 20 year life they will cost 3 times the original purchase price in spare parts and modifications. Not that many cars will run 20 years and they don't have quite the hard life that pointy jets do. As dealers cut purchase costs (if they actually do) they will make it up on franchised servicing charges and pricey parts and consumables!
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Pete,
Which pointy jet is your other car then?
David
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24-odd responses and *surprise, surprise*, none of you saw the opportunity to take the p*** out of me and my BMW!
I referred to my BMW speedometer having a *clock spring* when I meant a *hairspring*. This was a golden opportunity for comments like ...
# I always said you had to wind those BMWs up to make them go.
# About time you got a proper car.
# Don't get wound up about it.
# So that's where all the ticking and whirring in BMWs comes from.
# You'll never be on time while you've got a BMW.
And I'm sure there's lots more!
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I am very surprised that breakers yards do not come into the equation.If one chooses wisely, there is money to be saved & satisfaction to be gained.
regards
Simon
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Yes, but there's some delicate social ettiquette at the scrapyard. If you're first purchase isn't big enough in some places you may find it's more useful asking the alsation for a price on a subsequent occasion....
More seriously, as far as new parts go - nobody in business (even a wholesaler) likes to have items sitting on shelves and passively eating up capital while they wait some years for a customer to appear like prince charming. This may explain the difficulty in obtaining some parts, though not the prices asked.
Where practicable, it's best to find a parts company or motor factor who supply the OEM parts - you may well find this is your dealer's source anyway so you don't end up paying a second mark-up.
David
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I'll just bring my original posting up to date by telling you that when I collected the speedometer from the BMW dealership, the storeman told me that I was lucky because BMW have been bringing down their parts costs and my £98+VAT speedometer was once priced at over £200. Phew!
The storeman said that BMW spares were now in the same price range as most mainstream European cars and considerably cheaper than many of the Japanese. Pleased to see that BMW are getting something right ... but read on ...
Whilst at the BMW dealership I looked over one of the newly launched 7 Series to see if it was really as undesirable as some have said. I thought the back end was much better than it appears in photographs but the fascia and that central control knob were, to my eyes at least, absolutely awful. I wouldn't want a 7 Series anyway but I am now worried that the forthcoming new 5 Series (E60) will be just as bad. Not so worried about the outside, it's the inside that Janet and I will be looking at when we are in the car and we are not prepared to face an aberration of an interior. Looks like we might be buying a so-called 'pre-owned' 5 Series in the shape of an E39, or we may even keep our E34 for another two or three years.
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